“AI, Brands, and the Super Bowl: If Artists Aren’t Paid Today, What Happens Tomorrow?”

Michael Jackson — Super Bowl XXVII 1993 Halftime Show

Forget the glitz and glam.

Behind every cultural spectacle — stadium performances, luxury collaborations, viral campaigns — lies an economic structure that rarely gets examined. Creative labor generates immense cultural and commercial value. But does it receive a proportional share of that value?

This question has circulated in creative circles for years. Designers, artists, and creative directors have debated what “fair” actually means in industries where exposure is often positioned as currency. And yet, structurally, little has changed.

The Exposure Model at the Top

Take the Super Bowl halftime show.

Production budgets reach tens of millions of dollars. Advertising slots sell for record prices. Sponsors, media rights, and global broadcasters monetize the event on a massive scale. Yet headline performers — even biggest names — are not paid traditional fees by the NFL.

The compensation is exposure — a massive spike in visibility, streaming metrics, and cultural positioning.

For emerging artists, that exposure can open doors. For established superstars, the commercial upside is already significant. But the financial benefits of the show itself accrue to the platforms and corporations that control distribution and monetization.

Even culturally iconic performances like Michael Jackson’s 1993 halftime show — which helped redefine the Super Bowl as a global broadcast spectacle — and Prince’s legendary 2007 “Purple Rain” performance — often ranked as the greatest halftime show ever — were not paid direct performance salaries despite enormous cultural impact. Yet the economic structure remained the same.

When visibility becomes compensation at the highest level, payment becomes negotiable for everyone else. If the world’s biggest artists accept this model, what does that signal to the rest of the creative ecology?

Chris Do and Beeple: The Leverage Debate

A core point in this narrative comes from a debate between Chris Do and Mike “Beeple” Winkelmann — before the AI era, before NFT headlines — about what creatives owe brands and what they should not concede.

Beeple recounted that a major luxury brand once asked him for free work. Chris Do’s response cut to the bone of the issue:

“As a creative, your only real power is to refuse work that doesn’t respect your value. Exposure is not compensation.” — Chris Do

Do’s argument was structural, not emotional. Working for free, even for a prestigious brand, trains corporations to expect unpaid creative labor. Saying yes without leverage only signals that creative labor is negotiable.

Exposure sometimes leads to opportunity — but it should never replace direct compensation, especially when the other party captures the financial upside of the work.

Exposure is not a bill you can pay.

Prestige, Prestige Economies, and Market Undervaluation

This logic extends far beyond halftime shows:

• Major studios and streaming platforms like Hollywood and Netflix control funding, distribution, and data — often shaping production structures and timelines in ways that benefit the platforms more than the creative workers. Independent observers have noted how streaming pressure affects everything from episode pacing to production expectations.
• Luxury conglomerates (e.g., LVMH) sometimes frame collaborations as prestige opportunities, offering creative exposure rather than equitable compensation, normalizing unpaid labor at the top.

If billion‑dollar entities can rely on prestige instead of payment, what does that imply about how creative labor is valued throughout the system?

Emerging creatives are told:

• “It’s good for exposure.”
• “It builds your portfolio.”
• “It might lead to bigger things.”

Exposure becomes expectation — not security. And expectations do not pay rent.

The Market and Perceived Value

One deeper reason creative labor is undervalued is the way markets perceive impact.

In economics, value is often tied to direct, measurable outcomes. That’s why:

• A doctor’s work is seen as essential.
• An engineer’s work is seen as foundational.
• A judge’s decision has legal authority.

Creative work, by contrast, often influences indirectly:

• Music moves emotion.
• Film shapes identity.
• Visual art challenges perspective.
• Journalism provokes thought.

Indirect impact is real impact — but it’s harder to quantify in spreadsheets. That difficulty often translates into lower bargaining power in negotiation.

Creativity may not always save a life in the medical sense, but it sustains culture, motivation, empathy, critical thinking, and community identity.

The market often undervalues what it does not easily quantify.

AI, Ethical Boundaries, and Creative Labor

Now add AI into the ecosystem.

AI tools can simulate styles, generate visuals, and produce written or audio work at scale. When creative labor is already positioned as negotiable, AI accelerates that dynamic:

• Creative output becomes scalable at low cost.
• Bargaining power shifts toward those who control compute, data, and platforms.
• Human labor risks being treated as interchangeable input.

This structural shift raises urgent ethical and legal questions:

• Should artists have the right to opt in or opt out of AI training datasets?
• Should there be compensation models when AI replicates stylistic elements derived from human work?
• Who owns AI‑generated output — the user, the platform, or the original creator?

Without frameworks for transparency, consent, acknowledgement, and participation in economic upside, AI risks becoming a system of extraction rather than augmentation.

Ghibli and the Meaning of Creative Authorship

A recent cultural flashpoint illustrates this tension clearly.

AI image tools have gone viral for generating pictures in the style of Studio Ghibli — mimicking the hand‑drawn aesthetic of films like Spirited Away and My Neighbor Totoro. These AI outputs are technically impressive, but they raise important questions about authorship and value:

• Ghibli films are built on decades of human craftsmanship, intent, and cultural context.
• AI replications can capture style but not purpose or lived creative experience.
• Current legal and ethical frameworks do not yet adequately protect creators when their work informs generative models.

This isn’t just about nostalgia or copyright. It’s a structural issue: when machines can approximate style at zero marginal cost, the economic leverage of human creators weakens unless there are fair compensation and consent frameworks in place.

Creatives Are Like the Body — Essential Even When Overlooked

Even creative work that seems “optional” plays essential roles in society — much like seemingly small parts of the body that are still vital for overall health.

We watch films not just for entertainment, but to reflect society back to ourselves. We listen to music because it shapes mood, memory, and connection. We read writing that challenges or expands our worldview. We see visuals that provoke empathy or critique.

These experiences do not manifest immediate economic outputs, but they sustain culture, identity, and emotional intelligence — foundational human capacities.

Creative labor is not peripheral. It is connective tissue.

The Real Question We Should Be Asking

Chris Do’s argument is not about ideology. It is about structure.

If exposure becomes the dominant currency of creative work — if platforms control distribution, capital is concentrated, AI can mimic aesthetics, and direct payment is negotiable —

what does that say about the actual value of creativity in society?

And if creatives are like organs in a body — each necessary even when unseen —

how do we ensure that cultural labor is respected, fairly compensated, and structurally supported in a future where technology, platforms, and capital hold disproportionate negotiating power?

References

• Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show isn’t paid like you think — Gulf News https://gulfnews.com/amp/story/entertainment%2Fbad-bunnys-super-bowl-halftime-the-real-cost-behind-the-spectacle-and-a-live-wedding-for-70k-fans-1.500437036

• Best Super Bowl Halftime Shows https://www.billboard.com/lists/best-super-bowl-halftime-shows/prince-2007/

• Chris Do x Beeple heated debate — YouTube https://www.youtube.com/live/SzztLX6qv7U?si=3UKbE9n--1wolfti

• AI‑generated Ghibli trend and ethical issues — ABC News https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-04-03/the-controversial-chatgpt-studio-ghibli-trend-explained/105125570?utm_source=chatgpt.com

• by Anita Nyotosetiadi, 12 Feb 2026